Sunny Leone to Bipasha Basu: Bollywood actresses who were part of horror films

Nargis Fakhri's comeback to Bollywood with her first ever horror flick, 'Amavas', comes as a breath of fresh air and here is the first picture from the sets of Amavas where the actress is seen with director Bhushan Patel and co-star Sachiin Joshi.
Interestingly, the film has gone on floors in London for a start to finish schedule which is about 35 days long.
The film is being directed by Bhushan Patel who has films like ‘Ragini MMS 2’, ‘Alone’ and ‘1920 Evil Returns’ to his credit and produced by Viiking Media and Entertainment in association with Simply West UK and Thoth Ventures. It is slated to release later this year.

Post a grand wedding with Virat Kohli in December and her extended honeymoon, Anushka Sharma is back in Mumbai and has already immersed herself in her professional commitments. On Tuesday night, the 29-year-old actress sent out jitters to her fans by sharing a teaser video of her upcoming horror flick 'Pari' along with a caption that read, “Sweet dreams guys… #HoliWithPari”.
Today, the actress shared yet another poster from the film on Instagram and this one is sure to leave you in dismay. The poster sees a horrendous figure standing behind Anushka and holding her shoulders, while Anushka looks completely in possession of an evil spirit. She captioned the poster, #HoliWithPari @officialcsfilms @parambratachattopadhyay @iprernaarora #KarneshSharma @kriarj #ArjunNKapoor #poojafilms".

Horror films have scared the audiences for decades in Bollywood. While the films provide the heebie-jeebies with their thrills, they have also featured some top names from B-town. What started out from psychological thrillers like ‘Mahal’ and ‘Woh Kaun Thi’, has evolved into a full-blown horror genre in Bollywood that has given many leading women a chance to display their scary side. Here’s looking at Bollywood actresses who have been a part of horror films.

Sunny Leone became a perfect choice for a role in the erotic-horror franchise ‘Ragini MMS 2’, as she became possessed by a house ghost in the sequel of the 2011 film ‘Ragini MMS’ which featured Rajkummar Rao and Kainaz Motivala. Sunny played a character which was almost autobiographical, with her character being called Sunny Leone in the film itself, to her moving away from adult films to mainstream cinema. She spooked one and all with her turn as a possessed woman.

One of Ram Gopal Varma’s most successful and accomplished works, ‘Bhoot’ had Ajay Devgn, Urmila Matondkar, Nana Patekar, Rekha, Fardeen Khan and Seema Biswas at the centre of the film. Urmila’s performance as a possessed Swati fetched her applause all over and rave reviews. Urmila ended up picking up multiple awards, most notably the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress. The film’s overall success led to RGV making a sequel ‘Bhoot Returns’ in 2012.

In a quasi-sequel to the 2002 hit horror film ‘Raaz’, Mohit Suri directed ‘Raaz: The Mystery Continues’. The film did not retain any of the earlier characters as it moved away to a fresh universe that had Emraan Hashmi play a painter, named Prithvi, who has an extraordinary gift, the ability to paint the future. His paintings tell Nandita's (Kangana Ranaut) future. The film dealt with issues of the "evil within" the human psyche and how it manifests itself. It was based on the myths and superstitions that are still widely existent in the contemporary Indian society.

With ‘Raaz 3’, Esha Gupta featured in the sequel to ‘Raaz: The Mystery Continues’ which was a sequel to ‘Raaz’. Although she did not play a ghost or a scary character herself, she was the afflicted party to Bipasha Basu’s character’s shenanigans. In her sole horror film and second Bollywood film, Esha acted opposite Emraan Hashmi for a consecutive second time after her debut in ‘Jannat 2’. ‘Raaz 3’ proved to be a worldwide hit at the box-office as it reportedly grossed $ 15 million.

After the success of ‘Bhoot’, Ram Gopal Varma turned producer for yet another horror film. ‘Vaastu Shastra’ featured Sushmita Sen, J. D. Chakravarthy, Peeya Rai Chowdhary and Purab Kohli in lead roles. Sush and Chakravarthy move into a haunted house of sorts with their little son, where he starts getting obsessed with his imaginary friends. The film proved to be a great success at the box-office and was later dubbed into Telugu as ‘Marri Chettu’.

Mallika Sherawat played the shape-shifting snake in her ambitious project ‘Hisss’ - that also featured Divya Dutta and Irrfan Khan. The film was released in Hindi, English, Tamil, Urdu, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. The beautiful snake-woman brutally murders those men who were involved in the capture of her mate as well as men who torture women. At Cannes Film Festival 2010, Mallika Sherawat promoted ‘Hisss’ by posing with a 22-foot-long (6.7 m) Burmese python on the red carpet.

Huma Qureshi shared screen space with her real-life brother Saqib Saleem in ‘Dobaara: See Your Evil’, which released earlier this year. It was an official adaptation of the 2013 American horror film ‘Oculus’; the original film's director and co-writer, Mike Flanagan, served as executive producer. Adil Hussain, Lisa Ray, Abhishek Singh, and Rhea Chakraborty also featured in crucial supporting roles.

Her career leapfrogged to great heights with her first horror film – ‘Raaz’ – in 2002. After staying away from the genre, the actress made her comeback to the supernatural side with ‘Raaz 3’. Bipasha Basu’s performance received praise from critics and audiences alike. Later she acted in more horror films like ‘Aatma’, ‘Creature 3D’ and ‘Alone’. With a vast array of successful spooky films, Bipasha has truly cemented herself as one of the most successful actresses in horror films in Bollywood.